


yester year.

by towards



Series: Trainwreckstuck [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Disappointment, M/M, downward spirals, messy breakups, trainwreckstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 22:06:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towards/pseuds/towards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a love of art that was taken too far.</p>
<p>Irony. A code that was barely understood and often misinterpreted. Only Striders understood the rules, and yet it varied between the three of them, lost in translation between techniques.</p>
            </blockquote>





	yester year.

**Author's Note:**

> A sort of midquel to Tomorrow & Tomorrow written by psychbreak!

It was a love of art that was taken too far.

Irony. A code that was barely understood and often misinterpreted. Only Striders understood the rules and yet it varied between the three of them, lost in translation between techniques. 

Bro was the undisputable master, reigning over the kingdom of cool with a leather glove and a devil-may-care attitude. He passed the laws unto his brothers just as surely as he placed the shades upon their faces, a gesture so steeped in sincerity that it's intentions must remain hidden at all times. As the king of their small, one-bedroom apartment, he attempted to teach them what he knew and how to survive in a world that was designed to eat them up and spit them out.

( His inexperience was his undoing, his mistakes were repeated and often galvanized in the minds of his younger brothers. )

Dirk, the middle child, governed the laws passed down to them. He took pride in upholding them with a reverence normally reserved for the father that he scarcely remembered (and had never met). The knowledge was his and his alone, never spoken allowed but instead communicated through word or text. Rather, Dirk preferred to impart his teachings through a mixture of violence to reprimand misdemeanors and chilled affection as means of approval. He was the judge and jury, never stating his ruling yet inflicting punishment swift and without mercy. 

(Dirk was the Problem Child, the neighbors whispered when they thought the family was out of earshot. Expelled for domestic terrorism. Tall, shady, covered in tattoos and piercings with not a single social skill to be found - no one missed him when he packed his bags and booted it to LA. )

As the youngest, Dave ranked lowest on the radar. He endured the parenting of two brothers too young to be role models, too broken to be whole, and struggles to find his place in the world. He did not possess Dirk's intelligence or Bro's survival instincts, though his own were not to be doubted. Instead he huddled in the chill of their combined shadows, watching as they drifted further and further from his reach as the years went on. More successful, more formidable. From Dirk he the finer sides of irony and manipulation, from Bro he learned brute force and how to be cool. 

(From Dirk he also learned how to be unerringly cruel, how to strike the weakest points and make the lowest feel even lower. From Bro, the art of emotionally crippling oneself to function with the bare minimum of emotion. For some time he remains the most successful, the least controversial.

As long as no one asks who he shares his bed with. As long as he stays in that bed. 

He's out of the house at 18 and into a shitty two-bedroom with Tavros before the troll is cut off from government funding. )

Dave admires the curve of Tavros' neck, rubs his fingertips over the knots of tension in his shoulders and kisses behind his ear. Enjoys the throaty chuckle, the thick Alternian rumble to his words, and watches his screen as he types in characters he scarcely understands to people he doesn't like. Tavros wheezes when he laughs and pauses when he talks, but never stutters. He's a hopeless loser but by far one of the most open, honest people Dave has ever had the (mis)fortune of meeting.

Dave loves him. Yet when Tavros murmurs it against his lips and cuddles him in bed, he meets it with silence and rolls away. 

He's got a record deal in the works and the troll supports him every single step of the way. Tavros works two jobs but comes home happy. 

(He's in love and he knows it but the little things start to drive him insane. Tavros can't go dancing. Tavros can't sing in key. He can't get through doors and eating out is a distant dream - few restaurants are both wheelchair access able and Alternian friendly.

Their problems are met with silence and Tavros' weaknesses show in his passive-aggression and refusal to tackle a problem head-on, while Dave struggles with feeling anything at all that isn't rage. ) 

They make it from fourteen to twenty-five. All the while bitterness festers, their happy memories rot. Earthling-Alternian tensions rise and Dave's crew isn't on the pro-rights. Sure, they know he's fucking a troll, but they don't have anything nice to say about it. Dave thinks he might've saw one of them stroking a knuckle over his matesprit's horn while Tavros cowered in his chair but he can't be sure, Tavros would never confirm it and he (doesn't want to know) didn't want to push it. All he knows is his matesprit doesn't want them near from then on.

It comes to a head one night. Tavros calls Gamzee and goes home.

Dave doesn't remember the breakup, only that the next morning he's incredibly hungover and Aradia is there gathering Tavros' things. Tavros won't answer his texts and eventually concern and remorse turns to hatred and self righteous fury.

"Fuck 'em," Big Bob grunts when he goes back to their bar the next night, lifting a hefty mug skyward. "To no strings attached."

They spend the next several hours harassing him. When they're too drunk to type and Tavros doesn't respond, they hit the streets and make their way to the Districts to make some poor lowblood's night a whole lot worse to make themselves feel a whole lot better.

The cycle starts. It's normal. Completely, utterly normal. Bro celebrates his singlehood (after tearing him a new one 'cause he's heard from friends what went down and now Tavros won't fucking talk to any of them. The fucking coward, Dave says) with him for a few weeks before Dave's behavior turns him off. Suddenly his requests for partying is met with a "not now" or a "nah dude i got stuff". 

He calls Dirk, to his surprise Dirk agrees. His big brother stops in, in a rare lull between shoots and it's all his friends can do not to immediately start making cracks about how gay he looks. It's true, his brother looks pretty fucking weird. Dirk does porn for a living and he's covered in tattoos and piercings and even the most hardcore of serious rappers would never get their ears gaged. 

Not to mention Dirk watches them all with an inscrutable expression that belies nothing. They try to fuck with him and he just rolls his shoulders and looks and they got nothing, just snide comments to each other. Dirk tags along to their partying and doesn't drink a fucking drop, he just makes idle conversation and texts his boyfriend (Dave thinks it's a guy he's dating, all he knows is that whoever it is has left some wicked fucking love bites on his shoulders) and looks pretty bored with the whole thing.

One of the guys says they should "go out" and he's too drunk to realize that "going out" isn't a smart idea when his bro's here. They go to the District, Dirk's asking one of the guys if they're visiting someone ("Yeah, got a friend we need to pay a visit to.") and then they're at the bus stop, waiting. 

A meek maroon blood gets off and she's the last one on. It's instant. They're cat-calling and snarling, rude as all fuck and they're cool with getting physical 'cause bruises don't show up on that pretty grey skin. They start with the harassing and one of them makes a move while Dave hangs back and laughs and laughs and laughs and then Dirk's coming out of nowhere. His elbow crashes into the much larger man's neck and his knee drives into his stomach. Dirk twists his fingers in his hair and turns, asking the girl if she's okay.

The other guys try to get the jump and Dirk spins and slams them down. It doesn't even take the wind out of him. 

Dave's speechless. He starts ("'ey, what the fuck Dirk?") but doesn't get past the first syllable before his brother's hovering over him. Dirk's shades are off and there's nothing emotionless about his face, he looks fucking furious. For a moment, he's worried he's going to be hit.

"I'm disappointed in you." 

Then Dirk's walking on by and offering to escort the troll home, shoulders straight and he's every bit the fucking prince the Game said he would be. 

Dave wonders why he could never be the knight.

From them on, his brother makes no attempt to contact him first. Dirk is disappointed, Dave's not worth his time, Dave's freefalling with no more guidelines to tell him how to work.


End file.
